Premature Evacuation (Underground Sorority #1) (9 page)

We arrived in Bianca’s room where she lay sprawled on her bed, clutching her stomach. Gaudy flowered wallpaper clung to the walls, a square of faded pale pink carpeting covered the hardwood floor in the center of the room, and two matching lamps brightened the room. Bianca and Erin’s beds each resided against a wall, facing the closets, their two computer desks pressed together to make one long desk between the beds. They’d coordinated bedding to match our house colors of pink and blue. Bianca inched her head in our direction in small notches like she couldn’t quite remember how necks worked. “I have cramps.”

“Did you take anything?” I said, unzipping my coat. “I have some prescription pills I take when mine get bad.”

She groaned and held out her hand. I gave her two pills, which she downed with a glass of wine.

I poured cups for Fallon and me. “Where’s Erin?”

“Campus TV station.”

“Again?” I plopped onto Erin’s bed and lounged. She’d snagged one of the coveted hosting gigs for our campus channel, where her report on local news would be seen by…probably no one. “We could just stay in and have a girls night instead.”

“Can’t. The guys are coming.” Bianca concentrated her eyes on her drink and wouldn’t meet mine.

“Corey too?” My chest stilled, equal parts excitement and dread. I’d just assumed he’d back out after our break up.

“Of course Corey. The plans haven’t changed. I’m not going to play favorites. You’re both going to end up at the same events with me. Get used to it.”

Yep, she had PMS.

“We could go home if you want,” Fallon offered. She braced her hands around her red Solo cup where she huddled in a corner.

I shook my head. This was
my
sorority’s event. Plus, yeah, I hoped he was only coming because he’d changed his mind. But when he arrived, he nodded and that was all. Not a single word to me during the entire time we pre-gamed with boxed wine. I took the silence Corey threw at me and brushed it off as if it were crumbs on my shirt. God, he looked good. He’d worn the jeans that made his ass look fabulous and my favorite shirt. Every time I got the urge to drink in the sight of him, I drank my wine instead. Bianca rallied once the pills kicked in and drove the conversation so it didn’t hang heavy and silent like an obstacle.

When we were nice and lubricated, we grabbed our coats and the three girls scrambled into the back seat. I bided my time watching the night landscape whip by at high velocity. Corey’s head rose an inch over the driver’s seat, swaying every time he made a turn. Once, I caught him checking up on me through the rearview mirror.

Nate turned to face me from the passenger seat, his jacket rustling. “So, you brought a chick. What, Corey turned you lesbian?”

“Oh great. It’s pick on Mackenzie time again!” I rolled my eyes. “And let’s say I
had
brought Fallon as my actual date, so what?”

Nate’s face drained of color.

I wasn’t finished though. “In case you haven’t noticed, you have free reign of your room now. No need to be pissed at me.”

My heart pounded fast and painful. Every muscle in my body itched to crawl into the front seat to see Corey’s reaction. But I kept my eyes focused on Nate.

“Yeah, Nate, shut the hell up,” Corey said, hands gripping the steering wheel.
He stuck up for me!

We sat in awkward silence for the rest of the ride. Last week I’d had fantasies of stringing my fingers between Corey’s and pulling him through the dark into a desolate spot hidden from view. He’d lean me against a tree and push my underwear to the side beneath my skirt. We’d ride each other while everyone else took the usual hayride. Then we’d stumble back with guilty smiles on our faces and make up some ridiculous excuse to cover our whereabouts. But now I only fantasized about him saying a word to me. Any word! I wasn’t picky.

We arrived at the Hayride site early and had ample time to browse the baked good selections at the store nearby. Fruity apples and spicy cinnamon scents coated the air. The wind turned the tip of my nose pink but the warm apple cider Corey spiked with a smuggled bottle of vodka kept my insides warm. Night crept around us like shadows and the silence between our group loomed until it became scarier than anything the hayride had in store. After a few more sips, Bianca grew woozy. Nate picked her up and carried her onto the hayride because every time she tried to step up onto the truck, she fell and started laughing hysterically.

Corey skulked to the back of the ride, far away from where Bianca leaned her head against Nate’s shoulder. By the time I got on, the cart was almost full and I had no choice but to plop down into the only empty space…next to Corey. He scooted closer to the railing to make room but my leg still pressed against his. The swirl of his breath in the cold curled toward me, the only part of him that leaned in my direction. We passed into darkness, surrounded by trees, scents of pine filling my nose. My stomach flipped with each bump of the cart. Corey seemed so haunting and distant, like a ghost along the path. It was as if he wasn’t even there. Fallon squeezed my hand, which gave me something to hold onto.

“This is so awkward,” I whispered in her ear. The scrape of the truck along the dirt path covered my words.

“He keeps glancing at you. At one point he reached out a hand to steady you on a bump but—” Another lurch crashed her head into mine. We both fell into giggles.

“But clearly he should,” I said instead.

Fallon leaned over me toward him. “You having fun?”

Corey didn’t acknowledge her, just stared at the Styrofoam gravestones lining the path. But a moment later when she faced forward again, he ducked behind me and grabbed her shoulder while screaming, “Boo!”

She yelped and crashed into the guy on her other side.

Corey let out a chuckle. “I admit, that was pretty fun.”

My cheeks flushed from both the cold and my resulting giggle. It wasn’t directed at me, but it was something.

The drive back to the sorority was far more awkward than the ride there. No one spoke the entire time, except for Nate who belted out hardcore rock songs like nothing was wrong. When we stepped out of the car, Bianca looked green. She turned to Nate. “Will you hold my hair back?”

If Nate didn’t know about her crush on him before, I was sure he did now. And he looked just as flushed as her at the idea.

Before he could answer, Bianca cupped her hand over her mouth and darted to the bathroom.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have given her those pills if she was going to be drinking,” Fallon said as we breezed inside.

“Whoops.” I seemed to recall something on the label about the meds causing stomach-related side effects if mixed with alcohol, but I defied that rule all the time and always came out unscathed.

The only light streamed from street lamps through the window, creating large patches of darkness that surrounded small circles of light. Corey hid in one of the shadows and shoved his hands into his pockets while Nate sat on the steps, cradling his hands in his knees. Fallon plopped down next to him.

“Hey, Mackenzie, do you guys have chips here or something?” Corey asked. He wore a blank, unreadable expression.

I stifled a twinge in my chest.
He used my full name
. “Yeah, in the kitchen.” I hesitated. “Do you want me to get you some?”

“I’ll go with you.”

I took a slow and steady pace he matched stride for stride. On the floor, our shadows mixed together, the only parts of us still connected. I flipped on the light and both of us blinked at the sudden brightness. He reached above my head and slid the dimmer down a few notches, effectively setting the lighting to
romantic ambiance.
He leaned against the wall, one foot propped up, leaving a scuff mark on the white paint. I fiddled through drawers and cabinets until I found something that resembled chips and handed him a granola bar.

He squinted at it. “This doesn’t have quite the salty goodness content I was craving.” The tip of his index finger touched my hand when he grabbed the bar.

I spun around and tossed him a salt packet. “Better?”

The corners of his lips quirked. “Listen,” he said, swallowing hard. “You okay? I mean, how are you?” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “God, that sounds so informal after everything.”

My shoulders tensed. I looked away. “I’m fine.”

He nodded, his eyes glistening in the unflattering florescent light.

“If we’re continuing with informalities,” I said. “The impolite thing for me to do is not ask you the same question.”

He raised a brow. “So what you’re saying is you don’t want to know how I am?”

I shuffled my feet. “I guess you could tell me. If you wanted to.”

He shrugged. “I probably shouldn’t answer then. Because usually people expect you to say you’re good. And that would be a lie.” He pushed open the swinging kitchen door and trudged back to the stairs. I stood there for a moment, my mouth hanging, my arms wide open, stunned.

And yeah, I fixed my lipstick in the dull stainless steel oven before sucking in a breath and joining the group.

“Bianca, are you all right?” Nate shouted at the top of his lungs, loud enough to wake people who may have been sleeping upstairs.

“Shush,” I snapped at him. “You can’t scream like that at this time of night.”

“Oh, shut up.” He stood up. “We should probably go anyway.”

When they reached the front door, Corey asked, “You girls coming out with us?”

I surfed a wave of euphoria at his words and divided a glance between Corey and Fallon. She shook her head subtly. Excuses filled my head: but she didn’t see the way he flirted in the kitchen! She only saw the awkward silence between us. Still, I couldn’t chance the possibility of getting to Quigley’s and losing him all over again in the crowd. “Thanks but I think we’re going to call it a night. I want to make sure Bianca makes it upstairs okay. Plus there’s some salt packets here calling my name.”

Corey held up the granola bar to me in solidarity.

Nate tapped his foot on the floor. “Come on, man. I don’t want to get stuck in line.”

Corey brushed passed me so slowly, his fingers grazed against my waist and lingered for a few seconds. When he finally removed his touch, it was like someone slowly peeling off the barcode on a gift, careful not to leave a trace of the price. Before he walked out, he shot me such a haunting smile that when the door shut behind him, Fallon raised her eyebrows to me as if to say, “Yeah, I saw that too.”

F
OR A WEEK AFTER the hayride, we never spoke in public. I’d see him at Quigley’s and we’d lock eyes. Several seconds would pass with us holding each other’s gaze in a drunken game of chicken. First one to flinch drinks. So he’d turn away and I’d down whatever was in my cup. Nate ignored me too. If he’d figured out about Bianca’s crush, he didn’t acknowledge it. I’d mostly spend my nights dancing provocatively next to Bianca, coaxing all the guys in the room toward us except the ones we actually wanted.

Still, whenever we were in the same bar, we’d stay on our respective corners, me toward the back, him commandeering the front by the dart board. Eventually he’d make his way toward the bathrooms in the back. I’d throw my arms in the air and close my eyes as I belted out whatever song was playing to prevent myself from the temptation of watching him. And while I swung my hips in tune to the beat, I’d feel a squeeze at my side, gentle, a small acknowledgement that he was still thinking of me. My eyes would pop open and Corey would be passing right by me, head forward, giving away nothing. Like I said, in public, we never spoke.

But in private, we had a secret communication system. We had lengthy discussions with one another without saying a word using status messages on the school social networking site.

After the hayride, I’d posted a picture of a bag of chips focused in on the sodium content. A minute later, he liked my picture and posted a status message of his own: an empty granola wrapper with the caption:
my comfort for tonight
.

When I woke up the next morning, I’d discovered he’d posted a new one at some point during the night:
I’ve been left for dead
.

I retaliated with the song lyrics I’d belted out to him the first night. He shifted to sappier quotes from songs with lyrics that claimed to still be thinking about someone. The first night he squeezed me in passing through the bar, he posted an image of the sand-filled squeeze ball he kept on his desk with the caption:
this is a poor substitute for what I really want to do.

Inside jokes between us flew across our status messages in a battle only we could understand. Smurf on the red. Plays on the word
scream
. He even once posted a screen shot of a karma sutra book opened to our favorite position.

Through song lyrics, we engaged in endless conversations, saying so much without saying anything at all. And so right before Fall Break, I stopped. And posted something real.

I think we’re saying the same thing. So let’s do something about it.

I shut down my computer and threw myself into another project to combat my racing heart. I sat on my bed, magazines and photocopied art books covering every surface, blanketing me with inspiration. I spent a few hours in the library leafing through art history texts. Then I bought out CVS’s magazine supply. Fallon was still struggling to find some kind of niche in art after my photography tutorial attempt and fashion design attempt fell flat. She was too shy and embarrassed to be intrusive enough to get the good pictures. So all she ended up taking photos of were the lifeless statues around campus. She had officially abandoned painting as her major but had yet to declare a new one.